Unresolved
by Lensky
Summary: Rufus Shinra, grieving.
1. Chapter 1

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_I want to go for a walk, _he had declared, and they had promptly abandoned their stacks of paperwork for a nighttime stroll across the plate. Rufus was silent, and barely glanced at his surroundings. She walked faithfully her regulation two paces behind his left shoulder; he was not in need of companionship. The President rarely was, these days.

Head down, gloveless hands thrust inside his pockets, he seemed to be wandering towards Midgar's very centre. She hoped he would walk back to his apartment – all too often now he slept at Headquarters. Reno, out of a combination of anxiety and sheer laziness, virtually lived on the top seven floors in a bid to remain at the President's side. Rufus had not promoted him. Doing so would have made a public statement about an incident and a situation he was refusing to face. She watched the tension in his shoulders, the exhausted, defeated steps that were so, so far from Rufus Shinra. Her heart bled for him as only a Turk's heart could.

He stopped abruptly with a sharp intake of breath, fixing his gaze on one of the four water fountains gracing the plate. Midgar had no greenery, and certainly no parks, but the capital did feature many great architectural wonders, and more than its' fair share of unimpressive steel and concrete monuments.

"Sir?"

She peered sideways at him in concern.

"Wutai has one of these," he said quietly. "Much grander, of course. It stands testament to the Kisaragi line."

For an instant rookie-Elena wanted to babble history at him; the things she had read and the opinions she had formed, her own trip to Wutai with all its surreal experiences and the impressions it had made on her. But she knew Rufus better now. And she had aged a great deal in a short amount of time.

"Have you seen it, Sir?"

She noted with shock that his jaw was set. In the pale illumination of the surrounding streetlights his eyes glistened. His voice was choked.

"I… have."

"…Rufus." She spoke softly. "Rufus, please lets go home."

He shook his head and bit his lip, drawing blood. She reached for his arm and grasped it tightly, but did not dare attempt to draw him away. They stood there unmoving, Elena stunned rigid by what would have been, in daylight, an outrageously public display of emotion. Rufus shuddered.

"Tseng-" and the name to her was a stab of pain, a grief completely unresolved, "I can't… without him. Elena. I am lost."

He looked at her desperately, tears sliding down his cheeks. A very young man, she realised suddenly, in more pain than he could bear. It was Tseng's training she called upon now, forcing aside her own emotions and summoning a peace and a strength the former leader of the Turks had taught her to find within herself. She gripped the President's hand firmly.

"We are going to your apartment now."


	2. Chapter 2

Stepping through his own door seemed to snap Rufus back into reality

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Stepping through his own door seemed to snap Rufus back into reality. He wiped an arm across his face, shrugged off his coat, and moved with great purpose toward the bar. He also began apologising profusely.

"I am sorry, Elena. I don't know what… it's the stress." He dumped a couple of glasses on the counter and reached for her spirit, vodka, before his own. She took a seat, removing jacket, artillery and shoes. She knew the drill as well as any Turk; they were not going anywhere for a while.

"Hold the ice."

She smiled at him, taken as ever by his manners. He offered a fleeting smile in return, eyes bloodshot, and pushed the vodka orange toward her. He knocked back an unseemly measure of scotch before slumping over the counter himself, the bottle in easy reach.

"You need a haircut," she noted.

He nodded, running a hand through the fine, blonde hair so many teenage girls admired.

"Ah yes. Wouldn't want to let the side down."

"Rufus…"

The look he gave her then offered her permission to say or ask anything; it was soft, vulnerable. Her fingers clenched unconsciously around her glass. She had never seen him like this, although she suspected Rude and Reno had, perhaps more often than she cared to imagine.

"Did you… did you meet Tseng in Wutai?"

He sighed. It was an idiotic question, but they both knew she was really asking something else.

"No. After his recruitment the company endeavoured to keep Tseng away from Wutai as much as possible, for obvious reasons. I met him when I was eight. At Headquarters."

Elena did not know what to say. She watched the President pour himself another scotch, and just as she was about to ask another misleading question-

"I wanted to impress him." Glazed eyes scrutinizing the remainder of his drink. "For a long time. He inspires honour, Tseng… I never believed he was a traitor. After my father moved me to Junon, he became my bodyguard… I'm sure you know the rest."

It pushed the boundaries past breaking point, and it was an issue her fellow Turks would never, never have dreamt of pursuing. But with Rufus Shinra bleeding openly before her, she had to know.

"But you went to Wutai. With him."

For a long time Rufus said nothing. When he spoke his voice was very quiet.

"After the war. I… was able to… facilitate a reconciliation between him and his mother. It won me his loyalty."

"I think… Rufus, I think you already had that. I think you always had that."

He smiled at her sadly. She knew it, now, she read it in his face. It was not Tseng's loyalty that had been won in Wutai. It was his love.


End file.
